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Wildcat Dome
An epic novel of postwar Japan—a powerful reckoning with empire, catastrophe, trauma, and truth-telling—by the author of Territory of Light.
Mitch and Yonko haven’t spoken in a year. As children, they were inseparable, raised together in an orphanage outside Tokyo—but ever since the sudden death of Mitch’s brother, they’ve been mourning in their private ways, worlds apart. In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, they choose to reunite, finding each other in a city undone by disaster.
Mitch and Yonko have drifted apart, but they will always be bound together. Because long ago they witnessed an unspeakable tragedy, a tragedy that they’ve kept secret for their entire lives. They never speak of it, but it’s all around them. Like history, it repeats itself.
Yuko Tsushima’s sweeping and consuming final novel is a metaphysical saga of postwar Japan. Wildcat Dome is a hugely ambitious exploration of denial, of the ways in which countries and their citizens avoid telling the truth—a tale of guilt, loss, and inevitable reckoning.
Mitch and Yonko haven’t spoken in a year. As children, they were inseparable, raised together in an orphanage outside Tokyo—but ever since the sudden death of Mitch’s brother, they’ve been mourning in their private ways, worlds apart. In the aftermath of the Fukushima nuclear catastrophe, they choose to reunite, finding each other in a city undone by disaster.
Mitch and Yonko have drifted apart, but they will always be bound together. Because long ago they witnessed an unspeakable tragedy, a tragedy that they’ve kept secret for their entire lives. They never speak of it, but it’s all around them. Like history, it repeats itself.
Yuko Tsushima’s sweeping and consuming final novel is a metaphysical saga of postwar Japan. Wildcat Dome is a hugely ambitious exploration of denial, of the ways in which countries and their citizens avoid telling the truth—a tale of guilt, loss, and inevitable reckoning.
272 pages, Hardcover
First published January 2, 2013
43 people are currently reading
5082 people want to read
About the author
Yūko Tsushima
52 books651 followersYūko Tsushima 津島 佑子 is the pen name of Satoko Tsushima, a contemporary Japanese fiction writer, essayist and critic. She is the daughter of famed novelist Osamu Dazai, who died when she was one year old. She is considered "one of the most important Japanese writers of her generation" (The New York Times).
She has won many major literary prizes, including the Kawabata for "The Silent Traders," one of the stories in The Shooting Gallery, and the Tanizaki for Mountain of Fire. Her early fiction, from which The Shooting Gallery is drawn, was largely based on her experience as a single mother.
Her multilayered narrative techniques have increasingly taken inspiration from the Ainu oral epics (yukar) and the tales of premodern Japan.
When invited to teach Japanese literature to graduate students in Paris, she taught the yukar, and her seminar led to the publication of Tombent, tombent les gouttes d’argent: Chants du peuple aïnou (1996), the first French edition of the epic poems.
Tsushima is active in networks such as the Japan-India Writers’ Caravans and dialogues with Korean and Chinese writers. Recent novels have been set in Taiwan during Japanese colonial rule, among the Kyrgyz, in medieval Nara, and in post-3/11 Tokyo. Her work has been translated into a dozen languages.
She has won many major literary prizes, including the Kawabata for "The Silent Traders," one of the stories in The Shooting Gallery, and the Tanizaki for Mountain of Fire. Her early fiction, from which The Shooting Gallery is drawn, was largely based on her experience as a single mother.
Her multilayered narrative techniques have increasingly taken inspiration from the Ainu oral epics (yukar) and the tales of premodern Japan.
When invited to teach Japanese literature to graduate students in Paris, she taught the yukar, and her seminar led to the publication of Tombent, tombent les gouttes d’argent: Chants du peuple aïnou (1996), the first French edition of the epic poems.
Tsushima is active in networks such as the Japan-India Writers’ Caravans and dialogues with Korean and Chinese writers. Recent novels have been set in Taiwan during Japanese colonial rule, among the Kyrgyz, in medieval Nara, and in post-3/11 Tokyo. Her work has been translated into a dozen languages.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 48 reviews
October 17, 2024
First published in 2013, Yūko Tsushima’s dense, demanding novel revolves around themes of contamination, guilt, shame and discrimination in Japanese society. Shifting between past and present, it unfolds over the course of sixty years, presented by multiple narrators whose voices frequently overlap and intertwine. These are people whose memories are as vivid as their current realities. At the centre of Tsushima’s story are Mitch (Michio), Kaz (Kazuo) and Yonko (Yuriko), friends since early childhood. Mitch and Kaz are representative of those once contemptuously referred to as “Konketsuji” or “the children of mixed-blood.” They’re the stigmatised offspring of Japanese women and American servicemen based in Japan post-WW2, some the result of consensual affairs, others of violent sexual assault. Mitch, Kaz and Yonko are connected through three women who also met early on in life: one ran the Yokohama orphanage where Mitch and Kaz were abandoned as babies; the other Sister Yae adopted Mitch and Kaz; the third, Yonko’s mother, became part of their ‘found family.’
Through the intersecting experiences of Mitch, Kaz and Yonko, Tsushima examines issues of alienation and identity, challenging cultural myths of a homogeneous, monoracial Japan - shored up by notions of the importance of heritage, purity of blood. Mitch and Kaz also symbolise those aspects of Japanese history that’ve been suppressed, suggesting a Japan in which denial’s deep-rooted: from the brutalities of the postwar years through to responses to events like the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Denial that’s underlined by Mitch, Kaz and Yonko’s inability to come to terms with a mystery from their childhood, the death of another orphan Miki from unknown causes, possibly an accident, possibly murder because of her biracial identity. Miki’s orange skirt, the one she was wearing when she died, feeds into the intricate imagery around light and colour that surfaces throughout Tsushima’s novel.
Tsushima’s title hints at aspects of her preoccupations. The dome refers to Runit Dome, a nuclear waste facility linked to US nuclear testing between 1948 and 1958, the aftermath of which was left unconfronted. The orphans in her narrative are sometimes compared to wildcats, animals that Tsushima associated with invisibility, heard about but rarely seen, rather like the possible radiation spreading after Fukushima. Her investment in the fate of orphans like Kaz and Mitch also operates as a plea for a more diverse, inclusive Japan. But Tsushima is interested too in postwar America, bringing in references to Nixon, to Vietnam, and to other aspects of American policies and politics – making it clear that Japan’s ills are not unique. Those biracial orphans adopted by Americans are shown to suffer as much as those who remained in Japan. It’s a piece that could be difficult to follow at times, stretches of conventional prose are abruptly disrupted by fractured monologues or passages that read more like prose poetry. I found some sections moving and powerful, others awkward, slippery or overly ambitious. But despite its ultimate unevenness, I thought this was a fascinating, sometimes haunting, portrait of Japan, of pervasive personal and cultural anxieties. Translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda.
Thanks to Netgalley and to publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an ARC
Rating: 3/3.5
Through the intersecting experiences of Mitch, Kaz and Yonko, Tsushima examines issues of alienation and identity, challenging cultural myths of a homogeneous, monoracial Japan - shored up by notions of the importance of heritage, purity of blood. Mitch and Kaz also symbolise those aspects of Japanese history that’ve been suppressed, suggesting a Japan in which denial’s deep-rooted: from the brutalities of the postwar years through to responses to events like the Fukushima nuclear disaster. Denial that’s underlined by Mitch, Kaz and Yonko’s inability to come to terms with a mystery from their childhood, the death of another orphan Miki from unknown causes, possibly an accident, possibly murder because of her biracial identity. Miki’s orange skirt, the one she was wearing when she died, feeds into the intricate imagery around light and colour that surfaces throughout Tsushima’s novel.
Tsushima’s title hints at aspects of her preoccupations. The dome refers to Runit Dome, a nuclear waste facility linked to US nuclear testing between 1948 and 1958, the aftermath of which was left unconfronted. The orphans in her narrative are sometimes compared to wildcats, animals that Tsushima associated with invisibility, heard about but rarely seen, rather like the possible radiation spreading after Fukushima. Her investment in the fate of orphans like Kaz and Mitch also operates as a plea for a more diverse, inclusive Japan. But Tsushima is interested too in postwar America, bringing in references to Nixon, to Vietnam, and to other aspects of American policies and politics – making it clear that Japan’s ills are not unique. Those biracial orphans adopted by Americans are shown to suffer as much as those who remained in Japan. It’s a piece that could be difficult to follow at times, stretches of conventional prose are abruptly disrupted by fractured monologues or passages that read more like prose poetry. I found some sections moving and powerful, others awkward, slippery or overly ambitious. But despite its ultimate unevenness, I thought this was a fascinating, sometimes haunting, portrait of Japan, of pervasive personal and cultural anxieties. Translated by Lisa Hofmann-Kuroda.
Thanks to Netgalley and to publisher Farrar, Straus and Giroux for an ARC
Rating: 3/3.5
June 6, 2025
“ Wildcat Dome” starts disorienting the reader from the opening pages and never relents.Characters appear and float away ,voices echo and memories gyrate wildly across the years.Time dislocates, fractures and reassembles in an arrhythmic cycle.The novel begins in the wake of the 2011 Fukushima nuclear disaster and swerves backward to American occupied Japan after the Hiroshima and Nagasaki bombings.These two events are the stanchions that buttress the temporal and thematic elements coursing throughout.
“ That’s Kazu’s voice.Kazu was part of you, Mitch— or rather he was you, and you were him.Even after he died, you still heard his voice wherever you went. In truth,it was your own voice you were hearing, but Kazu never strayed far from your thoughts , even after all these years.
Isn’t that right Mitch?
Yonko wishes she could cling to Mitch’s arm, whispering softly in his ear. In his mind, he becomes a little boy again, the skinny kid who never left Kazu’s side,running swiftly alongside him…”
This passage introduces Mitch, Kazu and Yonko.They are the three people who dominate the narrative ebb and flow. The passage also illustrates the mystery and temporal inconsistencies that are characteristic of the novel’s narrative style.The prose erases the gaps between time frames and blurs the boundaries between characters. As a result, the reader becomes a spectator caught in the crossfire of the characters’ stream of consciousness,struggling to identify the speakers and trying to place their thoughts in linear sequence.
The nuclear disaster of 2011 has brought a now elderly Mitch back to Japan after many years living abroad.He returns to the home that his deceased childhood friend Kazu has bequeathed to him.Mitch and Kazu are familiar with disaster long before the Fukushima event.They are the abandoned mixed race offspring of American soldiers who had been stationed in Japan after World War 2. They grew up in an orphanage and were eventually adopted by “Mama,” a single woman who worked in the orphanage.She raised the boys as brothers and they developed a bond with Mama’s niece Yonko, whom the boys regarded as a cousin.Upon returning to Japan, Mitch and Yonko reconnect through an event that has haunted the trio since childhood.While playing hide and seek in the park,they witnessed the drowning of a seven year old girl who was one of their playmates. They are unsure if she was deliberately pushed or if the drowning was an accident.They even fear that somehow they were complicit in the event. The young girl wore an orange skirt that swayed in the water. Throughout the years, other women wearing the color orange have been murdered, resurfacing the memories that the trio have tried to suppress.
The mental dislocation resulting from this incident fuses themes of personal and societal trauma that recur throughout the novel.Mitch and Kazu have struggled to find their footing in Japan.A mixed race person is a visible reminder of the shame and disorientation of the post war occupation.These individuals become both a symbol and reminder of post war colonial domination, the aftermath of nuclear devastation and the attendant violence against women that occurred during that time.The novel combines the ongoing horror of the childhood murder with the challenges of racial identity and managing the detritus of nuclear waste to create a saga chronicling the development of postwar Japan.
Journeying with Mitch and Kazu through this era of history is an eerie experience.The reader is placed inside the consciousness of two social outsiders as they attempt to resolve a mysterious event from their past, imparting a sense of shame and guilt undergone by individuals and society during this era. The novel is rooted in feeling and emotion more than linear logic. It will be off-putting and uncomfortable to some and memorable to others.
“ That’s Kazu’s voice.Kazu was part of you, Mitch— or rather he was you, and you were him.Even after he died, you still heard his voice wherever you went. In truth,it was your own voice you were hearing, but Kazu never strayed far from your thoughts , even after all these years.
Isn’t that right Mitch?
Yonko wishes she could cling to Mitch’s arm, whispering softly in his ear. In his mind, he becomes a little boy again, the skinny kid who never left Kazu’s side,running swiftly alongside him…”
This passage introduces Mitch, Kazu and Yonko.They are the three people who dominate the narrative ebb and flow. The passage also illustrates the mystery and temporal inconsistencies that are characteristic of the novel’s narrative style.The prose erases the gaps between time frames and blurs the boundaries between characters. As a result, the reader becomes a spectator caught in the crossfire of the characters’ stream of consciousness,struggling to identify the speakers and trying to place their thoughts in linear sequence.
The nuclear disaster of 2011 has brought a now elderly Mitch back to Japan after many years living abroad.He returns to the home that his deceased childhood friend Kazu has bequeathed to him.Mitch and Kazu are familiar with disaster long before the Fukushima event.They are the abandoned mixed race offspring of American soldiers who had been stationed in Japan after World War 2. They grew up in an orphanage and were eventually adopted by “Mama,” a single woman who worked in the orphanage.She raised the boys as brothers and they developed a bond with Mama’s niece Yonko, whom the boys regarded as a cousin.Upon returning to Japan, Mitch and Yonko reconnect through an event that has haunted the trio since childhood.While playing hide and seek in the park,they witnessed the drowning of a seven year old girl who was one of their playmates. They are unsure if she was deliberately pushed or if the drowning was an accident.They even fear that somehow they were complicit in the event. The young girl wore an orange skirt that swayed in the water. Throughout the years, other women wearing the color orange have been murdered, resurfacing the memories that the trio have tried to suppress.
The mental dislocation resulting from this incident fuses themes of personal and societal trauma that recur throughout the novel.Mitch and Kazu have struggled to find their footing in Japan.A mixed race person is a visible reminder of the shame and disorientation of the post war occupation.These individuals become both a symbol and reminder of post war colonial domination, the aftermath of nuclear devastation and the attendant violence against women that occurred during that time.The novel combines the ongoing horror of the childhood murder with the challenges of racial identity and managing the detritus of nuclear waste to create a saga chronicling the development of postwar Japan.
Journeying with Mitch and Kazu through this era of history is an eerie experience.The reader is placed inside the consciousness of two social outsiders as they attempt to resolve a mysterious event from their past, imparting a sense of shame and guilt undergone by individuals and society during this era. The novel is rooted in feeling and emotion more than linear logic. It will be off-putting and uncomfortable to some and memorable to others.
March 4, 2025
I ended up finding this book frustrating.
It had a really good premise to pull me in with this group of children witnessing the drowning of another child, but as the plot developed it found it more and more enigmatic with no real conclusions or character arcs that made any sense to me.
The writing was beautiful with lots of imagery particularly surrounding the colours green and orange. Unfortunately, I failed to make sense of it so I'm afraid it was wasted on me. The changing perspectives and timelines along with the lack of speech marks were disorientating.
Ultimately, I just didn't feel clever enough to follow what the author was trying to do here. There were themes that never seemed to go anywhere, character arcs that ended in them abruptly dying and an enigmatic prose and plot that just became frustrating.
Sorry, not one for me.
This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.
It had a really good premise to pull me in with this group of children witnessing the drowning of another child, but as the plot developed it found it more and more enigmatic with no real conclusions or character arcs that made any sense to me.
The writing was beautiful with lots of imagery particularly surrounding the colours green and orange. Unfortunately, I failed to make sense of it so I'm afraid it was wasted on me. The changing perspectives and timelines along with the lack of speech marks were disorientating.
Ultimately, I just didn't feel clever enough to follow what the author was trying to do here. There were themes that never seemed to go anywhere, character arcs that ended in them abruptly dying and an enigmatic prose and plot that just became frustrating.
Sorry, not one for me.
This honest review is given with thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for this book.
November 8, 2025
Reading Wildcat Dome feels like entering a convoluted dreams overlapped with reality with no boundaries as the world was spinning around, dragging you through the inexplicable of unknowns, truths buried in lies, and a nightmares that shackled you to its past. The intertwining monologues of one character with another, the lack of dialogue punctuations & the thoughts flitted & merged between voices with no distinctions of who is who proven to be a challenge as the flow of the story gets progressively harder to read. To which it took me months to finish this. Yet I dont feel thats a bad thing. The themes of this novel was diverse, ones that need deeper discussions.
The central themes of the book are on isolation of being different from the masses, the uncertainty of the futures brought upon by the fear of the end, the struggle & loneliness of orphaned children born in a society that deemed their blood different from the rest, desperation of wanting to connect, the strong genuine friendship formed between these lonely souls. With focus on multiple narrators, Mitch or Michio, dark skinned half Japanese, Kazu with a bad leg after an accident, Yonko, the girl that befriends them, Miki, their young friend that died young and still haunts them. Jumping from past and present in a non-linear narrative lend a confusing & dizzying charm to the story which can get hard to digest when reading. The ominous, suffocating layered complexity to the overlapping voices made reading hard for me yet I was caught in the intensity of their life, the regrets & fear they have of their situation, of curse that kept them caged in darkness, of hurtful truths that may shatter all of their beliefs, the accusations of murder just because they are half Japanese born during the World war of their Japanese mother and American soldier father, either through forced, violent assault or affairs behind closed doors. Nothing can beat the stigma & unfortunate circumstances that rendered these orphans as they are not wanted by their parents & even the Japanese society, not belong to neither country, leaving them in the middle, lost.
With disorienting flow of thoughts & dissociative narration flits from one character to another, Wildcat Dome was the most complex and compelling novel of Tsushima, one that required your attention. Focused on the aftereffects of World War, the Nuclear war and how this led to unresolved trauma and haunting nightmares with each of these characters felt in deep regret and guilt until their adulthood. Its a beautiful story yet sorrowful in its execution. A novel that lingers in my mind even months after and I wished to reread this again just to get into the head of these characters to understand them in spiritual and emotional level
Thank you to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the e-arc
The central themes of the book are on isolation of being different from the masses, the uncertainty of the futures brought upon by the fear of the end, the struggle & loneliness of orphaned children born in a society that deemed their blood different from the rest, desperation of wanting to connect, the strong genuine friendship formed between these lonely souls. With focus on multiple narrators, Mitch or Michio, dark skinned half Japanese, Kazu with a bad leg after an accident, Yonko, the girl that befriends them, Miki, their young friend that died young and still haunts them. Jumping from past and present in a non-linear narrative lend a confusing & dizzying charm to the story which can get hard to digest when reading. The ominous, suffocating layered complexity to the overlapping voices made reading hard for me yet I was caught in the intensity of their life, the regrets & fear they have of their situation, of curse that kept them caged in darkness, of hurtful truths that may shatter all of their beliefs, the accusations of murder just because they are half Japanese born during the World war of their Japanese mother and American soldier father, either through forced, violent assault or affairs behind closed doors. Nothing can beat the stigma & unfortunate circumstances that rendered these orphans as they are not wanted by their parents & even the Japanese society, not belong to neither country, leaving them in the middle, lost.
With disorienting flow of thoughts & dissociative narration flits from one character to another, Wildcat Dome was the most complex and compelling novel of Tsushima, one that required your attention. Focused on the aftereffects of World War, the Nuclear war and how this led to unresolved trauma and haunting nightmares with each of these characters felt in deep regret and guilt until their adulthood. Its a beautiful story yet sorrowful in its execution. A novel that lingers in my mind even months after and I wished to reread this again just to get into the head of these characters to understand them in spiritual and emotional level
Thank you to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for the e-arc
March 11, 2025
3.75
This book feels different from other Yuko Tsushima's works but as I advanced to the story, it feels familiar. It took me quite a long time to finally finish this because the narrative took a bit of effort to grasp but the moment I read the first sentence I know I would love it. Which I did. I loved the narrative, it feels quite poetic, a bit distant but beautiful.
This book dealt with unresolved trauma and denial, alongside with events that happened in the world and the effect of those such events, such as Vietnam War and the earthquake and nuclear incident that followed it in Japan in 2011. But what I caught the most in this book is actually the way all the characters were trying to live their own respected lives carrying the trauma and the prejudice they have for being mixed-race children. I just wished the ending to be more concluded but I guess it's fine.
In all its difficulty and challenges, this book is about the many ways of people living their lives, continue on living even if it's taking a lot from them, while carrying something deep in their hearts.
It's either you love it, or you miss it.
Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus & Giroux for the ARC.
This book feels different from other Yuko Tsushima's works but as I advanced to the story, it feels familiar. It took me quite a long time to finally finish this because the narrative took a bit of effort to grasp but the moment I read the first sentence I know I would love it. Which I did. I loved the narrative, it feels quite poetic, a bit distant but beautiful.
This book dealt with unresolved trauma and denial, alongside with events that happened in the world and the effect of those such events, such as Vietnam War and the earthquake and nuclear incident that followed it in Japan in 2011. But what I caught the most in this book is actually the way all the characters were trying to live their own respected lives carrying the trauma and the prejudice they have for being mixed-race children. I just wished the ending to be more concluded but I guess it's fine.
In all its difficulty and challenges, this book is about the many ways of people living their lives, continue on living even if it's taking a lot from them, while carrying something deep in their hearts.
It's either you love it, or you miss it.
Thank you NetGalley and Farrar, Straus & Giroux for the ARC.
May 8, 2025
3.5 ⭐️? It was a little all over the place but I also appreciated how realistic that was to memories and reflecting
August 17, 2025
A dense, dreamy novel about stigma, the falibilty and precarity of memory, and a fairly strong condemnation of Japan's culture of conformity. This book follows no linear plot — chapters jump between different timelines and characters' percespectives. Information is revealed to the reader in a slow but scattered way and conversations between characters blur the line between imagination and reality (because what's the difference anyway?).
The core preoccupation of the novel is the unsolved death of a young girl that follows the three main characters, Mitch, Kazu, and Yonko, throughout their lives. Feelings of guilt and perceived allegations haunt the characters, while they also deal with a magical realist repeating of the past they feel powerless to stop. Tsushima isn't interested in revealing who committed the murder (or if Mikichan was murdered at all), instead this event is used to explore the marginalisation of mixed race children in Japan and the characters close but strained bond between each other. They travel widely to escape the past but always find themselves drawn back to Japan, each other and the events of their childhood.
Although I found the themes of the book interesting and I was absorbed by certain characters, I was occasionally bored and frustrated by the ambiguity of Tsushima's writing. It is the type of book that is filled with metaphor and symbolism (some of which I got and many of which I'm sure I missed), and would benefit from being studied more closely. Overall, it was a strange book that made me think.
I received an arc from the publisher via Netgalley.
The core preoccupation of the novel is the unsolved death of a young girl that follows the three main characters, Mitch, Kazu, and Yonko, throughout their lives. Feelings of guilt and perceived allegations haunt the characters, while they also deal with a magical realist repeating of the past they feel powerless to stop. Tsushima isn't interested in revealing who committed the murder (or if Mikichan was murdered at all), instead this event is used to explore the marginalisation of mixed race children in Japan and the characters close but strained bond between each other. They travel widely to escape the past but always find themselves drawn back to Japan, each other and the events of their childhood.
Although I found the themes of the book interesting and I was absorbed by certain characters, I was occasionally bored and frustrated by the ambiguity of Tsushima's writing. It is the type of book that is filled with metaphor and symbolism (some of which I got and many of which I'm sure I missed), and would benefit from being studied more closely. Overall, it was a strange book that made me think.
I received an arc from the publisher via Netgalley.
March 19, 2025
"She'd told her son this long ago: it's not the dead who suffer most, but the ones who go on living."
This translation was published yesterday! The original was published in 2013, a few years before her death. I just learnt that the author is Osamu Dazai's daughter, though he wasn't around to raise her. The narrative style is dream-like and flits between different narrators with no clear attempt at linearity so you have to piece the story together and be comfortable with uncertainty, the same uncertainty that plagues the characters as they examine their incomplete memories of their past.
This is a story set in post-war Japan about children who were the direct products of or directly affected by the war. Two mixed-race boys left behind by American GIs were adopted by a woman, and the boys grew up alongside their cousin, Yonko. Mixed-race children have to endure prejudice from the other locals despite being born and raised in Japan. Many years ago, these children witnessed the accidental death of another girl from the orphanage but everyone tried to move on from it. The only who could not was the boy responsible, who commits suicide decades later. Over time, the children from the orphanage got adopted into American families one by one. Some of the boys who survived one war ended up drafted into another in Vietnam by virtue of their new American nationality.
Everyone returns a decade later when the founder of the orphanage gets cancer. More years later, when the children have become adults in their 50s, the Fukushima nuclear disaster happens and Tokyo itself becomes poisoned; insects breed like crazy and plants mutate. It becomes clear that everyone in this story is poisoned in some way by the war—damaged children grow up 'lopsided' (to borrow Yiyun Li's term) and unable to move on from their past traumas, women struggle to raise children who then grow up to struggle themselves, and the idea of a complete and stable family is but an ideal—or worse, haunted by signs and survivor's guilt.
This translation was published yesterday! The original was published in 2013, a few years before her death. I just learnt that the author is Osamu Dazai's daughter, though he wasn't around to raise her. The narrative style is dream-like and flits between different narrators with no clear attempt at linearity so you have to piece the story together and be comfortable with uncertainty, the same uncertainty that plagues the characters as they examine their incomplete memories of their past.
This is a story set in post-war Japan about children who were the direct products of or directly affected by the war. Two mixed-race boys left behind by American GIs were adopted by a woman, and the boys grew up alongside their cousin, Yonko. Mixed-race children have to endure prejudice from the other locals despite being born and raised in Japan. Many years ago, these children witnessed the accidental death of another girl from the orphanage but everyone tried to move on from it. The only who could not was the boy responsible, who commits suicide decades later. Over time, the children from the orphanage got adopted into American families one by one. Some of the boys who survived one war ended up drafted into another in Vietnam by virtue of their new American nationality.
Everyone returns a decade later when the founder of the orphanage gets cancer. More years later, when the children have become adults in their 50s, the Fukushima nuclear disaster happens and Tokyo itself becomes poisoned; insects breed like crazy and plants mutate. It becomes clear that everyone in this story is poisoned in some way by the war—damaged children grow up 'lopsided' (to borrow Yiyun Li's term) and unable to move on from their past traumas, women struggle to raise children who then grow up to struggle themselves, and the idea of a complete and stable family is but an ideal—or worse, haunted by signs and survivor's guilt.
March 17, 2025
I love books that can be experienced at multiple levels, especially when they are well written. At its most basic, this is a mystery, where a group of young children are traumatised by an event that occurs in their early childhood, and are haunted by it and its repercussions throughout their lives. At another level, this is a story of how what it means to be a family and how these can form without biological bonds. At yet another level, this is a story of identity and what it means to be stuck between cultures, belonging and not really belonging to either. At a whole different level, this is a story of the terrible difficulties of living as a mixed race child and person in Japan, and the pervasive racism one has to endure. Finally, this is the tragic story of children of heroic Japanese women who persevered through terrible adversity, and often surviving rape, to raise beautiful and kind children born from the ravages and passions of American GIs post WW2.
Beyond the thematic complexity, I actually liked the form the author chose to tell her story. It is highly unconventional, foregoing many traditional mechanisms - linearity, distinction between dialogues and internal thoughts, clear delineation between characters' thought processes, etc. This writing forced me to pay special attention to ensure I got all the author wanted to say. It also served to show the whirlwind of emotions the protagonists found themselves in throughout their lives, and the unexpected turns their thoughts and recollections often took.
I highly recommend to anyone interested in the history of postwar Japan, and those curious about orphans and how they build their lives. It's also a moving narrative of a type of female heroism rarely spoken about.
My thank to Netgally and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book early, in return for an honest review.
Beyond the thematic complexity, I actually liked the form the author chose to tell her story. It is highly unconventional, foregoing many traditional mechanisms - linearity, distinction between dialogues and internal thoughts, clear delineation between characters' thought processes, etc. This writing forced me to pay special attention to ensure I got all the author wanted to say. It also served to show the whirlwind of emotions the protagonists found themselves in throughout their lives, and the unexpected turns their thoughts and recollections often took.
I highly recommend to anyone interested in the history of postwar Japan, and those curious about orphans and how they build their lives. It's also a moving narrative of a type of female heroism rarely spoken about.
My thank to Netgally and the publisher for the opportunity to read this book early, in return for an honest review.
February 11, 2025
A modern novel about Japan dealing with issues from biracial children and their treatment after WWII ( nicknamed Wildcats ) to the Fukushima nuclear disaster and a murderer triggered by the colour orange. In the beginning, I found the writing style and translation difficult to follow and dizzying structure but after a while, you get used to it and get your bearings. The topics hit on the truth of Japanese society issues and are a form of protest against injustice and conservatism of Japanese society. The writing is elegant, true to the form of literary fiction there is a threading of the colour orange that is skillfully placed throughout the novel drawing us into the mystery aspect of the novel and keeping the reader drawn into the story.
Thanks to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this ARC. This is my honest review.
Thanks to Netgalley and Farrar, Straus and Giroux for this ARC. This is my honest review.
July 6, 2025
Didn’t enjoy it at all. Too convoluted and abstract. If I didn’t buy it, I would have DNF at page 50
July 31, 2025
I adored this book. The way it is written is beautiful and mesmerizing, and the translation reads as a breeze. That said, this is not a book for everyone. At times I felt lost in who was speaking and where the story was going. It isn't written chronologically, and there aren't any quotation marks so sometimes it feels like a maze. But this cannot be seen as a separate criticism that can be "fixed", because it is part of the book and the unfolding of the story.
On the cover it said that this was a metaphysical story, but I think that phenomenological would be a better term here.
The whole book revolves around one event - the (alleged) murder of Miki-chan - and how the people around her carried this event throughout their lives. We mostly follow three characters: Yonko, Kazu, and Mitch. Miki, together with Mitch, Kazu, and others, were orphans. They were children of american soldiers who had came to Japan during the war (most probably due to rape). There are a lot of heavy themes within this book like racism, rape and death, and probably a lot of things that went past me.
When they were around 7 years old, Mitch, Kazu, and Yonko were hiding in a bush and saw Miki fall into a pond. Tabo (an isolated child who was a little older) "seemed" to have pushed her into it (although it is never clear what actually happened). This is the event that will rule the entirety of the book. They never openly talked about it, and were always afraid of being accused as murderers or complicit to the murder. There are multiple reports of murders in the same vicinity, where the person who is murdered was wearing an orange skirt, which is what Miki also wore that day.
There are moments where they talk about it, and in those moments you can feel the mix of emotions they are going through. Not only do they have regrets about not saying anything, they are still scared. Being an orphan, dark-skinned, not completely japanese, and also many other things, they are afraid to be shunned, judged or worse. The three of them go their separate ways, but seem to be constantly finding each other. Is it because they want to stick together? Or is it a curse and are they bound together through this incident. You mainly follow the thoughts of these characters, they think roughly about the same: this event and what the others are doing now. They care for each other and want what is best for them, even though they feel jealousy, anger and sadness for each other.
They seem to be bound together by something they cannot talk about. The pond seems to be a metaphor for their lives. They are constantly drowning in this traumatic experience, leaving or entering Japan because of it. Unable to escape their past, but also unable to deal with it, they seem to be stuck. It is beautiful and seems to me a call to be honest with yourself and the people around you. Deal with the life you have right now and deal with it the best way you can. You might not have the strength for it right now, but don't stand still for too long because time will not wait. The characters are so nuanced and feel like real people.
Sometimes people are too scared to look, but once they do it seems to be different from the way they imagined it:
"Oh, there's a pond here, Mitch stops, look at Annie and then at the pond. But this pond, with its big fountain in the middle, isn't scary. It's perfectly round, and not dark at all. The surface of the water glitters as it reflects the strong rays of the sun." (p. 118)
The author shows you, she doesn't tell you what it actually is or what the true essence behind this story is. She shows people, how they deal with things, how their memory changes, and how they relate to one another. Not hero's doing things out of pure good or pure evil, but people trying to live.
On the cover it said that this was a metaphysical story, but I think that phenomenological would be a better term here.
The whole book revolves around one event - the (alleged) murder of Miki-chan - and how the people around her carried this event throughout their lives. We mostly follow three characters: Yonko, Kazu, and Mitch. Miki, together with Mitch, Kazu, and others, were orphans. They were children of american soldiers who had came to Japan during the war (most probably due to rape). There are a lot of heavy themes within this book like racism, rape and death, and probably a lot of things that went past me.
When they were around 7 years old, Mitch, Kazu, and Yonko were hiding in a bush and saw Miki fall into a pond. Tabo (an isolated child who was a little older) "seemed" to have pushed her into it (although it is never clear what actually happened). This is the event that will rule the entirety of the book. They never openly talked about it, and were always afraid of being accused as murderers or complicit to the murder. There are multiple reports of murders in the same vicinity, where the person who is murdered was wearing an orange skirt, which is what Miki also wore that day.
There are moments where they talk about it, and in those moments you can feel the mix of emotions they are going through. Not only do they have regrets about not saying anything, they are still scared. Being an orphan, dark-skinned, not completely japanese, and also many other things, they are afraid to be shunned, judged or worse. The three of them go their separate ways, but seem to be constantly finding each other. Is it because they want to stick together? Or is it a curse and are they bound together through this incident. You mainly follow the thoughts of these characters, they think roughly about the same: this event and what the others are doing now. They care for each other and want what is best for them, even though they feel jealousy, anger and sadness for each other.
They seem to be bound together by something they cannot talk about. The pond seems to be a metaphor for their lives. They are constantly drowning in this traumatic experience, leaving or entering Japan because of it. Unable to escape their past, but also unable to deal with it, they seem to be stuck. It is beautiful and seems to me a call to be honest with yourself and the people around you. Deal with the life you have right now and deal with it the best way you can. You might not have the strength for it right now, but don't stand still for too long because time will not wait. The characters are so nuanced and feel like real people.
Sometimes people are too scared to look, but once they do it seems to be different from the way they imagined it:
"Oh, there's a pond here, Mitch stops, look at Annie and then at the pond. But this pond, with its big fountain in the middle, isn't scary. It's perfectly round, and not dark at all. The surface of the water glitters as it reflects the strong rays of the sun." (p. 118)
The author shows you, she doesn't tell you what it actually is or what the true essence behind this story is. She shows people, how they deal with things, how their memory changes, and how they relate to one another. Not hero's doing things out of pure good or pure evil, but people trying to live.
October 7, 2025
“Wildcat Dome”
by Yuko Tsushima is a multilayered, haunting saga that reflects on postwar Japan and the enduring aftershocks of historical trauma, framed by the 2011 Fukushima disaster.
Spanning six decades, the novel begins in 2011, in the wake of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear catastrophe. An elderly man named Mitch returns to Tokyo and reunites with his childhood friend Yonko after years of silence. Their meeting reopens a long-buried secret from their shared past in an orphanage, forcing them—and the reader—to sift through layers of memory, guilt, and denial.
At the heart of the novel lies the mystery surrounding the death of a seven-year-old girl, Miki-chan, in the mid-1950s. The story unfolds across shifting timelines and perspectives, creating an intentionally unreliable narrative that questions the very nature of truth. The mixed-race protagonists—children of Japanese mothers and American GI fathers—embody Japan’s postwar identity crisis, carrying within them the nation’s buried shame and its uneasy reconciliation with the past.
A central concern in Wildcat Dome is the unreliability of memory and how trauma reshapes reality. The text makes this explicit: “At that age, you can barely distinguish reality from fiction. It’s like living in a cocoon inside a dream.” Tsushima isn’t merely exploring the fallibility of recollection; she’s showing how trauma fractures the very act of remembering. A child’s mind, overwhelmed by fear and confusion, cannot preserve events as they were—it distorts them into something half-true, half-imagined. Memory becomes a fog, a place where fact and feeling fuse into something unstable.
The conversations between Yonko, Sachi, and Ami-chan reveal that memory is not an individual record but a collective construction. When Sachi says, “When I think about being with you that day, I start to feel like I really was there,” it’s a striking admission of how memory can be rewritten in real time through dialogue. They are not recalling the past so much as rewriting it together, turning trauma into a shared, fragile fiction.
Sachi’s recollection of hearing Miki-chan fall—“Maybe I imagined it happening after the fact, but the sound stayed with me”—captures the emotional truth Tsushima is after. The sound may be imagined, yet it feels more real than silence. It’s as if the mind, unable to bear the absence of closure, manufactures its own sensory evidence. This blurring between imagination and recollection traps the characters in a cycle of guilt. Because they cannot agree on what actually happened, they cannot process or forgive themselves. The uncertainty becomes a prison. Kazu’s question, “What had they even done since that day when they were unable to save Miki-chan?” echoes this paralysis—without truth, there can be no redemption. The more they search for clarity, the deeper their guilt burrows, like a wound that won’t close.
In Tsushima’s hands, the mystery of Miki-chan’s death is less about solving a crime and more about understanding the psychological debris left behind. The truth is not a single buried object waiting to be found, but a shattered mirror whose fragments reflect different, contradictory versions of the past. The real tragedy isn’t just the event itself—it’s how the survivors live on, haunted by the impossibility of certainty.
This fractured truth corrodes their ability to connect. The unprocessed trauma of Miki-chan’s death breeds a deep emotional disconnection, pushing the characters toward imagined intimacy rather than real communication. Their relationships exist in a liminal space between reality and fantasy.
Kazu holds imaginary conversations with Yonko while digging holes in a botanical garden. Yonko, standing in her flower shop, speaks at length with Kazu’s ghost. Mitch imagines both of them sitting beside him, offering comfort about their missing friend, Nobu. These are not nostalgic daydreams but rehearsed performances—carefully constructed dialogues that provide emotional safety. Within fantasy, they can speak freely without fear of judgment or the inadequacy of words. “It’s for his own protection,” Kazu thinks, perfectly summing up the self-defensive nature of their illusions. The real world is too painful; imagination becomes their last refuge.
This pattern of invention extends beyond conversation into identity itself. As the text notes, “They began to invent stories—the kind of fairy tales you might tell to a young child.” Mitch’s fabricated tale about his mother, or their collective fantasy that Nobu is living peacefully in India, shows how lying becomes a survival instinct. It’s not deception but a creative act—a way to manage unbearable loss. The lie becomes a balm, an emotional prosthetic where honesty would only deepen the wound. They maintain the illusion of connection through shared invention, though what they share is fiction. In this way, Wildcat Dome becomes a study of how trauma makes even intimacy a performance. They are bound by memory, yet isolated within it—together in sorrow, but each profoundly alone.
Another crucial layer of the novel lies in its exploration of identity and belonging. The protagonists’ mixed-race heritage is not just biographical detail but a political condition, one that dooms them to perpetual otherness. The instruction, “Don’t forget Japanese... Otherwise, we won’t understand each other anymore,” takes on immense symbolic weight. Language becomes their only homeland—a fragile thread connecting them to a culture that has already rejected them. Speaking Japanese is not just communication; it’s resistance. It’s how they assert existence in a world that refuses to acknowledge them.
Tsushima captures their alienation in the line, “If those children had stayed in Japan, people would have told them they were American, and in America, people probably tell them they are Japanese.” Their identity is thus defined by negation: they are always what they are not. Mitch’s inability to settle, his sense that his life has simply “slipped away,” mirrors the existential drift of those who belong nowhere. His wandering becomes both literal and spiritual—a manifestation of internal dislocation. Even in old age, he reflects, “Even after all this time, even as adults, we’re still mixed-race orphans.” The phrase “still” captures the permanence of this fracture; it’s not something they’ve outgrown but a wound that has shaped their entire lives. In countries where no one speaks Japanese, they feel like ghosts—present, yet unseen.
Through these characters, Tsushima articulates a universal longing for belonging. To be unmoored from language, nation, or history is to lose one’s coordinates in the world. Their effort to preserve Japanese is their fight to stay real—to themselves and to each other.
The novel’s larger scope lies in its depiction of how personal and historical trauma intertwine. Tsushima connects the orphans’ private grief to the national and global disasters that define Japan’s modern history. The narrative links the atomic bombings to the Fukushima meltdown, suggesting that trauma is cyclical, a recurring pattern that keeps seeping into new generations. The mystery of Miki-chan’s death mirrors this pattern: an unresolved tragedy buried but never contained.
Jeff—or Nobu—is the embodiment of this entanglement. Born of postwar occupation, he later vanishes in the chaos of the Vietnam War. The line, “Jeff had been born as a direct result of Japan losing to America during World War II—how was it possible he had died in Vietnam?” encapsulates the cruel irony of history: those created by war are often consumed by it. His MIA status, neither alive nor dead, becomes a metaphor for historical amnesia—a ghostly limbo between memory and forgetting.
The recurring image of the color orange ties these traumas together. It begins as a personal motif—the color associated with Miki-chan’s death—but soon expands, staining every layer of the narrative. The “orange and poisonous” karaka fruit, the “unknown woman wearing orange,” and the orange glow of napalm in Vietnam all converge into one radiating symbol of contamination. When Yonko insists, “There’s no meaning behind it,” her denial only underscores the unbearable truth: the personal and the historical are inseparable. The color leaks across their lives, just as history leaks into the present.
Here, Tsushima’s message becomes clear: there is no safe distance from history. The characters’ grief mirrors Japan’s own—unacknowledged, buried, but still toxic. The pond in the orphanage, the radioactive fallout, the poisoned forests—all are manifestations of the same contamination. Trauma, like radiation, cannot be contained by time or memory.
Personally, however, I found myself wavering between admiration and exhaustion. Tsushima’s dreamlike, meandering prose—so immersive and hypnotic—beautifully mirrors the disorientation of memory. The nonlinear structure and blurred perspectives aren’t decorative; they’re integral to the novel’s design. Reading Wildcat Dome feels like being inside a mind trying, and failing, to hold its fragments together. Yet, that very design can also overwhelm. The constant namedropping of events and shifting geographies left me unmoored, as if I were drowning in the same whirlpool the characters inhabit. The question, then, is whether this is a flaw or a deliberate evocation of the trauma itself.
If disorientation was Tsushima’s aim, then she has succeeded brilliantly. The title itself, “Wildcat Dome,” drawn from the Runit Dome built to contain radioactive waste, makes this intention explicit. The Runit Dome was never a permanent solution—it merely covered over poison that still leaks into the sea. Tsushima’s narrative functions the same way: her characters build psychological domes to contain their pain, but the cracks always show. The references to Vietnam, 9/11, and other global events are not excess—they are seepage. Trauma refuses containment; it contaminates everything.
So, has Tsushima succeeded? I think she has. Wildcat Dome may not offer the neat satisfaction of revelation or closure, but it delivers something rarer—a visceral empathy for those who live with the uncontainable. The novel traps you within the dome, surrounded by ghosts, secrets, and echoes of a poisoned past. My exasperation as a reader is part of the experience, proof that Tsushima’s vision has worked. It is a difficult, perhaps even punishing, success—but a success nonetheless.
Spanning six decades, the novel begins in 2011, in the wake of the earthquake, tsunami, and nuclear catastrophe. An elderly man named Mitch returns to Tokyo and reunites with his childhood friend Yonko after years of silence. Their meeting reopens a long-buried secret from their shared past in an orphanage, forcing them—and the reader—to sift through layers of memory, guilt, and denial.
At the heart of the novel lies the mystery surrounding the death of a seven-year-old girl, Miki-chan, in the mid-1950s. The story unfolds across shifting timelines and perspectives, creating an intentionally unreliable narrative that questions the very nature of truth. The mixed-race protagonists—children of Japanese mothers and American GI fathers—embody Japan’s postwar identity crisis, carrying within them the nation’s buried shame and its uneasy reconciliation with the past.
A central concern in Wildcat Dome is the unreliability of memory and how trauma reshapes reality. The text makes this explicit: “At that age, you can barely distinguish reality from fiction. It’s like living in a cocoon inside a dream.” Tsushima isn’t merely exploring the fallibility of recollection; she’s showing how trauma fractures the very act of remembering. A child’s mind, overwhelmed by fear and confusion, cannot preserve events as they were—it distorts them into something half-true, half-imagined. Memory becomes a fog, a place where fact and feeling fuse into something unstable.
The conversations between Yonko, Sachi, and Ami-chan reveal that memory is not an individual record but a collective construction. When Sachi says, “When I think about being with you that day, I start to feel like I really was there,” it’s a striking admission of how memory can be rewritten in real time through dialogue. They are not recalling the past so much as rewriting it together, turning trauma into a shared, fragile fiction.
Sachi’s recollection of hearing Miki-chan fall—“Maybe I imagined it happening after the fact, but the sound stayed with me”—captures the emotional truth Tsushima is after. The sound may be imagined, yet it feels more real than silence. It’s as if the mind, unable to bear the absence of closure, manufactures its own sensory evidence. This blurring between imagination and recollection traps the characters in a cycle of guilt. Because they cannot agree on what actually happened, they cannot process or forgive themselves. The uncertainty becomes a prison. Kazu’s question, “What had they even done since that day when they were unable to save Miki-chan?” echoes this paralysis—without truth, there can be no redemption. The more they search for clarity, the deeper their guilt burrows, like a wound that won’t close.
In Tsushima’s hands, the mystery of Miki-chan’s death is less about solving a crime and more about understanding the psychological debris left behind. The truth is not a single buried object waiting to be found, but a shattered mirror whose fragments reflect different, contradictory versions of the past. The real tragedy isn’t just the event itself—it’s how the survivors live on, haunted by the impossibility of certainty.
This fractured truth corrodes their ability to connect. The unprocessed trauma of Miki-chan’s death breeds a deep emotional disconnection, pushing the characters toward imagined intimacy rather than real communication. Their relationships exist in a liminal space between reality and fantasy.
Kazu holds imaginary conversations with Yonko while digging holes in a botanical garden. Yonko, standing in her flower shop, speaks at length with Kazu’s ghost. Mitch imagines both of them sitting beside him, offering comfort about their missing friend, Nobu. These are not nostalgic daydreams but rehearsed performances—carefully constructed dialogues that provide emotional safety. Within fantasy, they can speak freely without fear of judgment or the inadequacy of words. “It’s for his own protection,” Kazu thinks, perfectly summing up the self-defensive nature of their illusions. The real world is too painful; imagination becomes their last refuge.
This pattern of invention extends beyond conversation into identity itself. As the text notes, “They began to invent stories—the kind of fairy tales you might tell to a young child.” Mitch’s fabricated tale about his mother, or their collective fantasy that Nobu is living peacefully in India, shows how lying becomes a survival instinct. It’s not deception but a creative act—a way to manage unbearable loss. The lie becomes a balm, an emotional prosthetic where honesty would only deepen the wound. They maintain the illusion of connection through shared invention, though what they share is fiction. In this way, Wildcat Dome becomes a study of how trauma makes even intimacy a performance. They are bound by memory, yet isolated within it—together in sorrow, but each profoundly alone.
Another crucial layer of the novel lies in its exploration of identity and belonging. The protagonists’ mixed-race heritage is not just biographical detail but a political condition, one that dooms them to perpetual otherness. The instruction, “Don’t forget Japanese... Otherwise, we won’t understand each other anymore,” takes on immense symbolic weight. Language becomes their only homeland—a fragile thread connecting them to a culture that has already rejected them. Speaking Japanese is not just communication; it’s resistance. It’s how they assert existence in a world that refuses to acknowledge them.
Tsushima captures their alienation in the line, “If those children had stayed in Japan, people would have told them they were American, and in America, people probably tell them they are Japanese.” Their identity is thus defined by negation: they are always what they are not. Mitch’s inability to settle, his sense that his life has simply “slipped away,” mirrors the existential drift of those who belong nowhere. His wandering becomes both literal and spiritual—a manifestation of internal dislocation. Even in old age, he reflects, “Even after all this time, even as adults, we’re still mixed-race orphans.” The phrase “still” captures the permanence of this fracture; it’s not something they’ve outgrown but a wound that has shaped their entire lives. In countries where no one speaks Japanese, they feel like ghosts—present, yet unseen.
Through these characters, Tsushima articulates a universal longing for belonging. To be unmoored from language, nation, or history is to lose one’s coordinates in the world. Their effort to preserve Japanese is their fight to stay real—to themselves and to each other.
The novel’s larger scope lies in its depiction of how personal and historical trauma intertwine. Tsushima connects the orphans’ private grief to the national and global disasters that define Japan’s modern history. The narrative links the atomic bombings to the Fukushima meltdown, suggesting that trauma is cyclical, a recurring pattern that keeps seeping into new generations. The mystery of Miki-chan’s death mirrors this pattern: an unresolved tragedy buried but never contained.
Jeff—or Nobu—is the embodiment of this entanglement. Born of postwar occupation, he later vanishes in the chaos of the Vietnam War. The line, “Jeff had been born as a direct result of Japan losing to America during World War II—how was it possible he had died in Vietnam?” encapsulates the cruel irony of history: those created by war are often consumed by it. His MIA status, neither alive nor dead, becomes a metaphor for historical amnesia—a ghostly limbo between memory and forgetting.
The recurring image of the color orange ties these traumas together. It begins as a personal motif—the color associated with Miki-chan’s death—but soon expands, staining every layer of the narrative. The “orange and poisonous” karaka fruit, the “unknown woman wearing orange,” and the orange glow of napalm in Vietnam all converge into one radiating symbol of contamination. When Yonko insists, “There’s no meaning behind it,” her denial only underscores the unbearable truth: the personal and the historical are inseparable. The color leaks across their lives, just as history leaks into the present.
Here, Tsushima’s message becomes clear: there is no safe distance from history. The characters’ grief mirrors Japan’s own—unacknowledged, buried, but still toxic. The pond in the orphanage, the radioactive fallout, the poisoned forests—all are manifestations of the same contamination. Trauma, like radiation, cannot be contained by time or memory.
Personally, however, I found myself wavering between admiration and exhaustion. Tsushima’s dreamlike, meandering prose—so immersive and hypnotic—beautifully mirrors the disorientation of memory. The nonlinear structure and blurred perspectives aren’t decorative; they’re integral to the novel’s design. Reading Wildcat Dome feels like being inside a mind trying, and failing, to hold its fragments together. Yet, that very design can also overwhelm. The constant namedropping of events and shifting geographies left me unmoored, as if I were drowning in the same whirlpool the characters inhabit. The question, then, is whether this is a flaw or a deliberate evocation of the trauma itself.
If disorientation was Tsushima’s aim, then she has succeeded brilliantly. The title itself, “Wildcat Dome,” drawn from the Runit Dome built to contain radioactive waste, makes this intention explicit. The Runit Dome was never a permanent solution—it merely covered over poison that still leaks into the sea. Tsushima’s narrative functions the same way: her characters build psychological domes to contain their pain, but the cracks always show. The references to Vietnam, 9/11, and other global events are not excess—they are seepage. Trauma refuses containment; it contaminates everything.
So, has Tsushima succeeded? I think she has. Wildcat Dome may not offer the neat satisfaction of revelation or closure, but it delivers something rarer—a visceral empathy for those who live with the uncontainable. The novel traps you within the dome, surrounded by ghosts, secrets, and echoes of a poisoned past. My exasperation as a reader is part of the experience, proof that Tsushima’s vision has worked. It is a difficult, perhaps even punishing, success—but a success nonetheless.
October 24, 2025
But you know, Japan is a strange, terribly conceited country that hates outsiders, so you have to be careful. You're likely to be bullied wherever you go because of how you look. Terrible things are lying in wait for you. But I want you to overcome those things. I want you to live. Because those are the wounds of my own soul. (183)
I understand why for others this may not be a '5 star' read, but for me I found Tshushima's weaving of narratives, perspectives, and timelines to be enthralling. Part of enjoying it for me was surrendering myself to Tshushima's story: here, time doubles back in on itself, both circle and weaving of time, place, and being. It is certainly a work that will become richer with each re-reading, and I cannot wait for that chance to enter her world again.
If only more of Tshushima's later works would be translated into English!
I understand why for others this may not be a '5 star' read, but for me I found Tshushima's weaving of narratives, perspectives, and timelines to be enthralling. Part of enjoying it for me was surrendering myself to Tshushima's story: here, time doubles back in on itself, both circle and weaving of time, place, and being. It is certainly a work that will become richer with each re-reading, and I cannot wait for that chance to enter her world again.
If only more of Tshushima's later works would be translated into English!
August 7, 2025
A hazy, misty novel with an omniscient narrator where nothing is as it seems. We slip in and out the heads of various characters as they interact, or imagine interactions, when they are close as well as when they are at opposite ends of the earth. Past is always present, especially their childhood traumatic memory of seeing a child drown. What is past and what is present is very slippery and changes over the course of the novel. A very challenging read, and I certainly skimmed various parts. I received an advance review copy for free, and I am leaving this review voluntarily.
April 26, 2025
Remember those old Family Circus comic strips where it would show a winding footprint pattern from the little boy going all over the place? That's how this plot felt.
(Also that comic sucked. It was literally never funny.)
While I would never claim I had a complete understanding of the other two books I've read from this author -- Territory of Light and Woman Running in the Mountains -- I definitely had a better grasp of those stories than this one. The way the story slips around from time to time and place to place and perspective to perspective made it feel like trying to hold onto a fish after you've just rubbed butter all over your hands. (You know, like you do.) I never felt certain of which time period we were in, who was still around and who wasn't, who was talking, etc. I did really appreciate, as always, Tsushima's skill with descriptive prose, her ability to be poetic without getting flowery, and showing the lasting trauma that can result from witnessing something horrific, even if it didn't happen directly to you. I thought she explored that very well and with a lot of care and poignancy. And the way the characters all felt tied to each other, in part because of that shared traumatic experience, was very moving.
But like...I feel like I gave myself a new facial wrinkle with how much my brow remained furrowed while reading this. It was just so hard to follow, and at times it felt like we were on a tangent that could have been its own novel. I wish the plot had stayed a bit more focused on Miki-chan and Tabo and all of that, and also quote marks on the dialogue would've helped, too. An interesting read and engaging at times, but a bit too Escher-like for there to be complete enjoyment.
(Also that comic sucked. It was literally never funny.)
While I would never claim I had a complete understanding of the other two books I've read from this author -- Territory of Light and Woman Running in the Mountains -- I definitely had a better grasp of those stories than this one. The way the story slips around from time to time and place to place and perspective to perspective made it feel like trying to hold onto a fish after you've just rubbed butter all over your hands. (You know, like you do.) I never felt certain of which time period we were in, who was still around and who wasn't, who was talking, etc. I did really appreciate, as always, Tsushima's skill with descriptive prose, her ability to be poetic without getting flowery, and showing the lasting trauma that can result from witnessing something horrific, even if it didn't happen directly to you. I thought she explored that very well and with a lot of care and poignancy. And the way the characters all felt tied to each other, in part because of that shared traumatic experience, was very moving.
But like...I feel like I gave myself a new facial wrinkle with how much my brow remained furrowed while reading this. It was just so hard to follow, and at times it felt like we were on a tangent that could have been its own novel. I wish the plot had stayed a bit more focused on Miki-chan and Tabo and all of that, and also quote marks on the dialogue would've helped, too. An interesting read and engaging at times, but a bit too Escher-like for there to be complete enjoyment.
February 26, 2025
Thanks to NetGalley and the publisher for an ARC of this book.
The book is definitely very philosophical, maybe too much so and some of the timelines and perspectives are a little unclear. But otherwise, I like the translation. It feels unforced, real. It has brought me closer to a period in time in Japanese culture that I knew very little about. And yet, some chapters/sections felt a little long-winded. The children were at the pond when the little girl fell in but it’s is a lot of reiterating and even some repetition.
It is mortifying to read that the mother of the (possible) killer covers for him. This was definitely a hard read especially as through the entirety of the book it was so clear how much the death of the little girl impacted all the children and their mothers. It is ironic that the mother of the murderer felt so superior to the orphans and the adoptive parents.
I also don’t quite understand the conversations in the book. People “talk” to each other in their heads, they have conversations with someone that isn’t even there. It confused me. Overall, I must admit, I didn’t quite understand the book. Especially the ending.
The book is definitely very philosophical, maybe too much so and some of the timelines and perspectives are a little unclear. But otherwise, I like the translation. It feels unforced, real. It has brought me closer to a period in time in Japanese culture that I knew very little about. And yet, some chapters/sections felt a little long-winded. The children were at the pond when the little girl fell in but it’s is a lot of reiterating and even some repetition.
It is mortifying to read that the mother of the (possible) killer covers for him. This was definitely a hard read especially as through the entirety of the book it was so clear how much the death of the little girl impacted all the children and their mothers. It is ironic that the mother of the murderer felt so superior to the orphans and the adoptive parents.
I also don’t quite understand the conversations in the book. People “talk” to each other in their heads, they have conversations with someone that isn’t even there. It confused me. Overall, I must admit, I didn’t quite understand the book. Especially the ending.
September 8, 2025
This is a challenging read but it's worth it. The story is part noir, part ghost story and part histporical drama. The story is enigmatic, haunting and steeped in trauma.
There is a lot of personal and cultural repression and reckoning going on. This is a rumination on postwar Japan told through the lives on orphans who were parented by American GI's in occupied Japan. The book also goes into detail about the environmental impact of this period.
After a trio of orphans witness a mysterious drowning of a friend they must confront the mysteries for the rest of their lives. never certain if it was an accident or murder drives the drama of the novel.
As they grow older, Mitch, Yonko, and Kazu, the three orphans, drift apart. Each affected by this event, they eventually reunite to confront their suspicions and demons.
The unreliability of memory, the lingering effects of trauma, the legacy of war are key themes.
The tricky bit of the book is that it jumps in time and features several internal conversartions.
These are used with great effect but can make the story confusing.
There is a lot of personal and cultural repression and reckoning going on. This is a rumination on postwar Japan told through the lives on orphans who were parented by American GI's in occupied Japan. The book also goes into detail about the environmental impact of this period.
After a trio of orphans witness a mysterious drowning of a friend they must confront the mysteries for the rest of their lives. never certain if it was an accident or murder drives the drama of the novel.
As they grow older, Mitch, Yonko, and Kazu, the three orphans, drift apart. Each affected by this event, they eventually reunite to confront their suspicions and demons.
The unreliability of memory, the lingering effects of trauma, the legacy of war are key themes.
The tricky bit of the book is that it jumps in time and features several internal conversartions.
These are used with great effect but can make the story confusing.
February 21, 2025
First I want to give my thanks to NetGalley, Farrar, Straus and Giroux and Yuko Tsushima for allowing me to read this ARC!
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5/5
I was really looking forward to reading this book, but unfortunately, it didn’t quite resonate with me. Despite being just over 250 pages, it took me 25 days to finish, as I struggled to follow the characters and their timelines.
That said, I appreciate how the story captures the harsh realities faced by GI children and the challenges of being biracial. However, I felt that the narrative became too fixated on the Murder of Color Orange, to the point where it overshadowed other aspects of the story. At times, I found myself wishing the characters would simply confront the truth or move forward, rather than remaining stuck in their unresolved pasts.
While this book wasn't for me, I can see how it might appeal to readers who enjoy introspective and layered narratives about identity, trauma, and justice.
This is also the first time that a book cover didn’t appear on my Kindle, which was a bit disappointing
Rating: ⭐⭐⭐.5/5
I was really looking forward to reading this book, but unfortunately, it didn’t quite resonate with me. Despite being just over 250 pages, it took me 25 days to finish, as I struggled to follow the characters and their timelines.
That said, I appreciate how the story captures the harsh realities faced by GI children and the challenges of being biracial. However, I felt that the narrative became too fixated on the Murder of Color Orange, to the point where it overshadowed other aspects of the story. At times, I found myself wishing the characters would simply confront the truth or move forward, rather than remaining stuck in their unresolved pasts.
While this book wasn't for me, I can see how it might appeal to readers who enjoy introspective and layered narratives about identity, trauma, and justice.
This is also the first time that a book cover didn’t appear on my Kindle, which was a bit disappointing
February 2, 2025
I had a lot of trouble following the storyline with the multiple characters whose names changed depending on the time period. You really have to work to follow each individual character. The English-speaking reader could use some help with this perhaps in the form of an annotated list of characters. However, the theme of the book and the way that the lives of these children played out was truly fascinating and done very well. Once I realized how the book was put together and what the author was trying to achieve, I appreciated it and it did keep my interest. I can well imagine how it works so much better in Japanese; no doubt this would be a challenging work to translate. It would certainly be an excellent choice for a book club that examined the historical reception of mixed race children in Japan.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It's the kind of story that stays with you and makes you think.
Thank you to NetGalley for an advance copy of this book. It's the kind of story that stays with you and makes you think.
March 12, 2025
***Thanks to NetGalley for this ARC in exchange for my honest review***
In post-war Japan, a group of children (consisting mostly of biracial kids born of Japanese mothers and US service members) witness a tragic event that haunts them. As they grow older and go in different directions, they continue to be drawn together by the unanswered questions around the event. The different voices and perspectives add layers of uncertainty to the story, and it was difficult to follow at times. Parts felt tedious and while I'm glad I stuck with it till the end, I didn't find this book particularly memorable.
In post-war Japan, a group of children (consisting mostly of biracial kids born of Japanese mothers and US service members) witness a tragic event that haunts them. As they grow older and go in different directions, they continue to be drawn together by the unanswered questions around the event. The different voices and perspectives add layers of uncertainty to the story, and it was difficult to follow at times. Parts felt tedious and while I'm glad I stuck with it till the end, I didn't find this book particularly memorable.
April 23, 2025
Interesting tale of traumatized seven year olds and how there lives are affected/haunted. A group of young children who live in an orphanage in Tokyo are playing in a nearby wooded park with a pond when one of them falls/pushed into the pond. What actually happened is not entirely clear but it haunts the remaining group forever. The kids are all of mixed origin of African American soldiers from after WW II and Japanese women and look accordingly. In Japan, this in of itself is very stigmatizing as well as a reminder of Japan loosing the war. Double Stigma. and total outsiders. The story is well told but is very confusing as the point of view is not always clear. Still worth it.
September 14, 2025
This book grew on me a lot! The book is very dense and demanding, but the more I read the more I finally found its rythm. Due to the book being very focused on emotions and non-linear story telling, it is confusing in the beginning, but the more you rely on your emotions to guide you through the book rather than logic, the better it becomes at conveying its core: how to social outcasts deal with shame and guilt stemming from the social environment and their own personal stories therein. I highly recommend the book, but it will take time to get the book, so do strap in when starting to read the book.
March 19, 2025
I requested this novel through Netgalley in exchange for an honest review.
I tried, I really tried to read it, put it down for some time, picked it up later, but it was too chaotic.
I felt like reading this book was like trying to follow the ball in a game of pinball. The different character viewpoints, the time period changes back and forth, the dialogues that weren't really dialogues : chaos !
And that's too bad because the themes really interested me, but I gave up because this book was giving me a headache trying to figure out who was where and when.
I tried, I really tried to read it, put it down for some time, picked it up later, but it was too chaotic.
I felt like reading this book was like trying to follow the ball in a game of pinball. The different character viewpoints, the time period changes back and forth, the dialogues that weren't really dialogues : chaos !
And that's too bad because the themes really interested me, but I gave up because this book was giving me a headache trying to figure out who was where and when.
January 14, 2025
Mitch and Yoko meet again, a year after the death of Mitch's brother. All of them were raised in an orphanage outside Tokyo and they consider themselves family.
I was looking forward to reading this book, but I can safely say it wasn't for me. Parts were beautiful, the old woman, living alone with grief, for example, parts were confusing.
Overall it just didn't grip me.
I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion
I was looking forward to reading this book, but I can safely say it wasn't for me. Parts were beautiful, the old woman, living alone with grief, for example, parts were confusing.
Overall it just didn't grip me.
I received a copy from NetGalley in exchange for my honest opinion
April 25, 2025
An unusual novel that uses the backdrop of the Fukushima nuclear incident and follow mixed race orphans (GI/War babies) and the death of one (that at least one of the orphans believes is linked to the modern orange clothes murderer). Without giving too many spoilers the novel is very much unreliably narrated and leaves you questioning what is reality, what is identity and what is belonging when you neither one nor the other...
Thank you netgalley & penguin press for the e-ARC.
Thank you netgalley & penguin press for the e-ARC.
August 13, 2025
A bit demanding, but not excessively. I read this very soon after reading Kang's 'We Do Not Part,' and preferred this by quite a stretch, even though they're very comparable for obvious reasons (both are about history's effects on the present; both are pretty depressing), and quite possibly for embarrassing reasons (geez, Evans, maybe #notalleastasianwomen). Ultimately, I thought this was a bit more morally serious, a bit less melodramatic, and substantially less claustrophobia-inducing.
December 27, 2025
I have to give this five stars, because I’ve never read anything quite like it. A book that encompasses grief, history, destiny, and suffering. Written with incredible skill, often shifting between the imagined and the real or the past and the future; yet the reader never loses her place.
A powerful and evocative piece of art about how history enters into all of our lives and informs who we are.
A powerful and evocative piece of art about how history enters into all of our lives and informs who we are.
May 14, 2025
Probably a 3.5 but I always round up when it comes to Tsushima.
She is possibly trying to fit too much into this book: a murder mystery, found families, friendships over the years, nuclear fallout after an earthquake and tsunami, cultural identity and half-blood Japanese orphans (or unwanted children) in post-war Japan and the discrimination they faced.
She is possibly trying to fit too much into this book: a murder mystery, found families, friendships over the years, nuclear fallout after an earthquake and tsunami, cultural identity and half-blood Japanese orphans (or unwanted children) in post-war Japan and the discrimination they faced.
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